HdM GALLERY is pleased to present a solo exhibition by artist Fan Jing, opening on September 13, 2025, and running through October 25, 2025. The exhibition features over ten of the artist’s paintings completed in the past two years.
This exhibition continues and further develops the themes of Fan Jing’s 2023 solo show “ As You Like It”. As the title “Fall to the Mortal World”suggests, Fan Jing constructs scenes that appear to draw from mythological narratives, yet she romanticizes the most mundane, worldly “raw materials” and grafts them onto myth-inspired races. Through tensions filled with violence, conflict, and provocation, she pulls the “divine” down from its pedestal and creates a fallen paradise of the absurd.
Compared to her works of previous stage, Fan Jing has amplified the intentional sense of humor present in earlier stages. The conflicts and violence are now more direct; the figures take up a larger portion of the canvas, and the dynamics between them have become more complex and expansive. While female figures remain central to her work, their identities are more ambiguous than before—no longer clearly identifiable as the Young Pioneers, ballerinas, or housewives frequently seen in her earlier paintings. These monumental, sculptural "giants" heighten the visual tension with sharply pointed breasts, large and muscular limbs, and insect-like wings that seem to sprout from their bodies. The exaggerated sexual features are not eroticized but instead suggest aggression. Hybrid creatures—such as centaur-like women or butterfly ladies—appear on the scene, affirming the metamorphosis resulting from intense desires while intensifying the theatricality of the compositions.
Fan Jing’s strong technical foundation underpins her classical approach. She skillfully uses stage-like lighting to produce dramatic contrasts between light and shadow. In her current works, the use of highly saturated colors has been further reduced. Instead, detailed rendering and subtle transitions of light and shadow enhance the sense of volume in the painted subjects. These techniques contribute to the dramatic tension and sense of pressure within the compositions. A precarious sense of equilibrium also adds unease. In the work “Test Flight”, for example, the composition is visually balanced on both the vertical and horizontal axes, yet the entire weight of the central figure is precariously supported by only two pointed breasts—prompting the viewer to question the very nature of that stability. Similar balancing acts appear in other works as well. What is more daring is the way Fan Jing places exaggerated human poses into intense scenarios while deliberately positioning private body parts at the visual center of the composition—as seen in works like “Mother and Son” and “No-Fly Zone”. This marks an escalation from her earlier implicit provocations regarding the disciplining of the female body. Here, challenges to sexuality and identity are laid bare. Her attention to dislocation and disorder reflects a female gaze that observes and testifies to the absurdity of reality.
In “Fall to the Mortal World”, Fan Jing employs a subversive humor in portraying violent scenes, provoking open-ended interpretation through entanglement and confrontation.
About the Artist
Born in Beijing in 1983, Fan Jing graduated from Capital Normal University’s School of Fine Arts, majoring in oil painting. She currently lives and works in Beijing. Her work predominantly centers on the human figure and consistently explores the confrontation, conflict, and balance between opposing forces—both in content and form. Her paintings have been exhibited in Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Paris, and Singapore, and are collected by important private collectors and foundations.
About the Curator
Dr. Crystal Yao studied at the Central Academy of Fine Arts (MA Art History) and Department of Chinese of Sun Yat-sen University (PhD Modern Literature). She now lives in Beijing and works as an independent scholar and curator. She focuses on History of Material Culture and Media Studies, tends to work with artists from different intellectual backgrounds, and looks forward to fostering a new sensual experience that connects and creatively transforms classical and early modern Chinese cultural resources in a global context.
